Author archives: barry

Press Release : Local Enterprise Office Roscommon confirms €50,000 county investment fund available Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise and Innovation, Frances Fitzgerald T.D. and Minister of State for Business, Pat Breen T.D., have launched the national search to find Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneurs (IBYE 2018) through the Local Enterprise Offices. IBYE is a programme run […]

The Creatives Dilemma – A Curious Matter. Way back in 2009, I was asked to carry out a study of the professional lives of almost 100 creatives – crafters, artists and designers – living in the West of Ireland. The overt aim of the project was to research what workshops, training and other support inputs […]

Congratulations! You’ve presented your product or service, negotiated an agreement that’s a win-win for both parties and closed the sale. Now remember that following up is a key function of selling not to be ignored. The thrill of the sale is hard to beat when you run your own business – whatever its size. I […]

Often, when trying to improve our sales performance, our attention is concentrated on how to present and how to negotiate. As vital as these tasks are, we should not lose focus on the true job in hand : closing that sale. See if you can apply any of these 6 ways to close that sale. […]

Hate Cynical Ads? I Know I Do. OK, before moving on to why I hate cynical ads, let’s start by saying that I generally enjoy listening to ads on the radio (I watch relatively little telly). I particularly like really great radio ads, like the campaign out these last few months from Appliances Delivered. I […]

How to Develop your Sales Funnel – Lifeblood of your Small Business. Listen, whatever marketing and promotional work you undertake, whether that be pressing the flesh, putting photos up on Instagram, email marketing or whatever, your focus needs to remain on moving people in your target market along and how to develop your sales funnel. […]

Profiteering UK retailers in Ireland have been a problem for years. In recent months, however, this has been particularly clearly demonstrated by the post-Brexit exchange rate between the Euro and Sterling. I was down in Galway recently and rambled into Debenhams, where I picked up a coat and took a notion to pull off the […]

Irish Craft Beer Symbols. This year has seen the launching of two separate Irish craft beer symbols, in an apparent attempt to stave off ‘pretenders’ from the world of Irish craft beer production. There has been a phenomenal growth in production of Irish craft beer over the last few years, to such an extent that […]

Email Marketing for Customer Retention Gathering email addresses (with permission), with the aim of incorporating email marketing for customer retention into your overall marketing strategy, is a great way to go and worthy of special attention. You can do this with online list building services like Sumo, or paper versions of the same thing stuck […]

People as part of the Services Marketing Mix When we think of the Marketing Mix, we’ve all heard about the famous “Four Ps”, made up of product, price, place (distribution) and promotion. However, the importance of people as part of the services marketing mix might just pass us by. You see, potential customers will make […]